HOUSTON AND HOUSTONIANS 95going ships run where the palatial steamboats once floated. Ofcourse the present is greater and grander than the past, but yetone cannot keep from sighing for the old days, when there wasreal pleasure in traveling and less break-neck haste and hurry.* , *,HOUSTON'S FIRST MARKET MAN.xN TOT long ago I was talking to Colonel Phil Fall and oneor two old-timers, when one of the gentlemen asked meif I could remember when the first market house wasbuilt. As that famous old house was erected several years beforeI was born I denied all remembrance-of its beginning, buttold him that I remembered the man who had the first marketplace in Houston and I do, too. He was a Frenchman namedRouseau. Originally there were two Rouseau brothers. Theyhad a big tent which was located on Preston Avenue betweenStude's coffee house and Milam Street. Of course, Stude's placewas not there then, but the Rouseau tent was on the lot westof where it now stands. Market Square was vacant then andwas used as a wagon yard by those who brought country produceto Houston and by ox wagons from the interior of the state,which was at that time over on the Brazos, up about Washing-,ton County and over toward the Trinity. Texas was sparselysettled, but Houston was then as now its commercial and 'businesscenter.The Rouseaus were wide-awake and progressive and theirtented market was profitable. They made too much money, infact, for their prosperity attracted fatal attention and one nightwhen one of the brothers returned to the tent after a temporaryabsence he found the other one dead with his throat cut and allthe money in the place gone. Thieves had murdered him, ransackedthe place and had gone, leaving no trace behind them,and the mystery has never been solved to this day.The elder brother though doubly stricken by the loss of hisbrother and all his money, did not give up, but continued thebusiness until the city, early in the 40's, erected the old woodenmarket house and drove him Oct of business. Then he erecteda one-story frame house on the site of his tent and opened a littlegrocery store.I can remember the old man well by two things. One was hispretty daughter, named Charlotte, and the other was a largeparrot that swore in French. Charlotte had charge of the storeand was always there as much so as the parrot, which sat uponits perch near the center of the store. The old man was seldomseen in the front room, or store proper, but remained nearly all.the time in the back room, where he could be heard grumblingand growling. All the boys in town were afraid of him, thoughfor what reason I am unable to say.That was 15 or 18 years after his tent experience and he musthave been rather an old man when I first knew him. He was